Anthony Goldstein

Well...this is, um. Different.

I have tits

That was a good week...always fun to have a week-long holiday that is shared by very few other people. I got a lot of sleeping and reading done, almost none of it in these journals. Almost. Either way, I feel relaxed and refreshed, or at least I did until I saw my "In" box at work...and I am now wishing that Pesach lasted for two weeks or possibly three.

It seems I've missed, though, the apprehension of a number of werewolves, including Fenrir Greyback. Good on all of you who helped with that; I can't imagine it was easy or at all enjoyable, and it takes a lot more courage than I've got in all of me to face that group. Not sure how I feel about the idea of them getting the Kiss, though...that seems a little hypocritical, if you ask me, but then, I've really no complaints about the idea of locking them up and throwing away the key, to use the popular phrase.

At any rate, I'm back and working and looking forward to having tea with a certain Miss Bones at some point in the very near future, should her calendar permit.

What a week already, as if it wasn't bad enough having Pesach starting on Sunday and getting nearly hourly owls from my mother making sure that I'll be there and making sure that I absolutely can't get away from work to help her clean and cook and prepare and all that. Funny how she never asks this of my other brothers, just me because I live so far from the old neighborhood. I've lost track of how many times I've had to tell her that no, I cannot get away and yes, I will be there and to please, please stop sending owls because my answers will not change.

That said, anyone who wants to come by for Seder on Sunday is more than welcome, so says the Mum. It's nothing if not educational, or so I've been told.

Thank G-d work is so distracting or else I might remember that

( Warded to Terry and Michael )

It should be pointed out that it's damn near impossible to come up with a counter-charm to anything when you're passed out from laughing so hard...or when you're laughing so hard that you can't really speak, for that matter.

This is going to be a very long night. Pesach can't come soon enough.

Bloody hell, what a weekend. Purim and then Shabbat and then every little old lady ever wanted to talk about marriage and Pesach plans. Thank G-d for Pesach...a week off from work. Oy.

Not, of course, that I dislike Purim, Shabbat or work. Purim is, frankly, my absolute favorite holiday (which reminds me that I have baskets for a lot of you from my mother...she went a little overboard this year), and Shabbat and work are Shabbat and work, but sometimes, a bloke needs a break, and I'm about at that point.

Seems I missed the circus, though. Pity. I enjoy circuses, at least when there aren't free-roaming lions and tigers and bears, oh my. I did manage to grab one of those biscuits that everyone's been talking about...it'll make a good breakfast tomorrow, I think.

The one night I go to bed early, and look at what I miss. And, while I must say that you ladies all looked lovely, I've always found it sexier when birds leave something to the imagination. And also when they can carry on a conversation, particularly a nice deep one about things besides the music, the weather or how curly my hair is. And also when they dress up as trees I figure, if you're leaving nothing to the imagination, it doesn't give me much incentive to want to talk to you and find out more about you, since it's already all out there for me to see.

All that said, it's looking hopeful that we'll be able to go public with the new charm next month, at which point, I may possibly be famous and no, I will not be giving out autographs. At least not for free.

So wait, what time is sunset supposed to be tonight? Because if it's being counted as having happend at around five or six this morning, it's been Shabbat all day and I am in such deep trouble.

Sweet Rowena, what a night. I've never had a panic attack before in my life, but last night was hell. I'm taking the day off from work since it was that damned charm that got me panicking anyway today, and I think I just...need to get out of the building, maybe take a walk outside...for the entire day. Shite, I'm still feeling shaky

Anyone want to join me for some nice, soothing tea this morning?

So it's fun when you've been working so hard that you're bringing work home from work (thereby making it homework, which you'd thought you'd left behind when you left school years ago) and that work that you've brought home from work is now spread out over what is supposed to be your bedroom, obscuring your view of anything else that may or may not be in your bedroom, including several owls from home and a certain lovely magical journal. The fun merely increases when your buried letters from home go unanswered and result in a very noisy howler from your mother, saying, "ANTHONY!!! WHY HAVEN'T YOU WRITTEN? ARE YOU SICK?!? ARE YOU DEAD?!?!? WHERE ARE YOU?" in the way that only my mother can shriek (and trust me, when she shrieks, glasses break and it's an utter mess), so you try to find parchment to write her back, but you have to clean first, and in cleaning, you unearth your certain lovely magical journal, which then distracts you from writing a letter back home, as there seems to be an enormous discussion about arranged marriages (more on that in a minute) and just as you're getting ready to write your own thoughts, another howler arrives, shrieking about you being sick or dead, so you pause in the writing of your own thoughts to jot off a quick note home to remind your shrieking mother that you just saw her on Shabbat and there really is no need to panic. And then you lose your train of thought, but you start writing in your journal anyway, hoping that it will pick back up somehow.

And ah, there it is.

So on the subject of arranged marriages, and speaking from experience, it can be a right pain in the arse, particularly when your grandmothers are in charge of it and have employed a matchmaker to find you the perfect Jewish witch to marry (and in one grandmother's case, the perfect pureblooded Jewish witch to marry...and those are hard to find, let me tell you. The last one they found me should be just about finished with her sixth year at Hogwarts now). You come home for Shabbat, just getting in before sundown to avoid catching hell from your parents for being late, and the very instant there's a lull in prayer, your grandmothers come to you and say, "Oh, Anthony, we've found you the loveliest girl!"

Now, the first time this happens, you're kind of hopeful, since you've seen this happen to your older siblings and you've not been too lucky with romance yourself. So you indulge them, until you find that their definition of the loveliest girl is a forty-year-old spinster with no teeth. BUT she's Jewish, she's a witch and, according to your one grandmother, she's pure. Now you're stuck because you have to find a reason to get out of this arrangement, and thank G-d your parents believe that you're allowed to choose. So you have to make up something that isn't horribly mean and suggest with the utmost kindness that you don't think it's a very good match.

This works well the first couple of times, but after several years of pressure to get married, they start wondering about you and whispering to themselves that they think, "Oh that Anthony, I don't know...I think he's a faygala," and you have to explain that no, you're not gay, you just don't like your grandmothers' (or the matchmaker's) taste in women.

So, in that sense, arranged marriages are for the birds. And I mean the avian type, not girls.

( Warded to Terry & Michael )

( Warded to Susan Bones )

And I thought the old biddies back home were bad with the gossip. Does anyone around here not know everyone else's business? Not that gossip has a huge amount of power, except when people spread it, or when it's true, but that's beside the point, isn't it?

Valentine's Day was lovely, and I must thank you, Katie Bell, for the most glorious and dazzling thirty minutes of my life (and no, your minds should not be going there, people who read this, as those thirty minutes were spent entirely out on the Lane). I'll never forget what you so briefly meant to me, and will hold you in my heart or ever, or something.

And now, to work.

Well. I think I can safely say that I'd never have seen that in the old neighborhood. I think I'm going to like it here (not that I didn't already, but seeing that...that thing this morning pretty much confirmed it).

Oh, by the way, Michael and Terry, Mum sends her love and cookies, those really good ones that pretty much fall apart when you bite into them and have the chocolate. I've got about four dozen of them in my kitchen.

Dinosaurs. It figures that my first week here, I'd be greeted with tiny dinosaurs. It's rather odd, actually, and I don't say that very often, as most everything is odd, but tiny dinosaurs...that is something I'd not expected. I can already tell that my life is going to get significantly more exciting living here, and that is not just the stars speaking.

Speaking of speaking, all but my nose and voice have recovered from that horrendous flu, and though I sound like unto a dying Snidget when I speak, I feel much better, which is to say that I don't feel like I'm half-dead anymore. Of course this is a good thing, and it's good to be back at work and finally making a dent in these boxes.

Speaking of which...

Shabbat is either the best day of the week or the worst day of the week to have the flu. On the one hand, it's not like I would've been able to do anything yesterday anyway, even if I hadn't spent the vast majority of the day unconscious on my mother's couch, but on the other hand, I couldn't really keep my head up during prayers, so Rabbi Gordon gave me a Long Talk after synagogue. Also, there's the fact that I had to listen to Grandmum talk all day about how she wanted to make me a nice, hot soup, but obviously, couldn't light a fire to cook. She made good last night, after sunset, but it still would've been so helpful to have a nice chicken soup earlier.

The worst time to have the flu, though, is inarguably right after moving into a new flat. I've so many boxes to unpack, and they're all lying around here, giving me dirty looks (or as dirty of looks as boxes can muster, I suppose), and all I've gotten done is to unpack my books (granted, no small task, but still). I may just sleep on this armchair tonight...it'd be easier than wrestling with the bed linens.